"O, it won't be nice at all. Something will happen; now you see if it don't," said Dotty, determined to be miserable.
After the two carriages, with the horses "Deacon" and "Judge," had driven off, and grandpa had given his last warning about fire, and Horace and the girls had waved their handkerchiefs for the last time, Dotty proceeded to the kitchen to see if she could find anything wherewith to make herself unhappy. Ruth stood by the flour-board kneading bread, and cutting it with a chopping-knife in a brisk, lively way. Polly sat by the stove sighing and rubbing silver.
"Dear me, child, what are you doing with my starch?" said Ruth as she saw Dotty with the bowl at her lips, and a sticky stream tickling down her apron.
"Starch?" cried Dotty, in disgust; "and you never told me, Ruthie! How did I know it wasn't arrow-root?"
"You see, Polly," said Ruth in a discouraged tone, "just what we are to expect from these children to-day. Next thing we know, that morsel of a Katie will be running away. They are enough to try the patience of Job when they both of them set out to see what they can do. And if Jennie Vance comes, the house will be turned upside down in five minutes."
Ruth might have known better than to complain to Polly, who always had something in her own experience which was worse than anybody else had known.
"We all have our trials," sighed that sorrowful woman; "if it isn't children, it's aches and pains. Now, for my part, I've been troubled for ten years with—"
Here followed a list of diseases. Ruth shut her lips together, resolved to say nothing more about her own trials.
"They don't either of them like me," thought Dotty. "I'm going off in the barn, and perhaps they'll think I'm dead. Katie," said she, sternly, "I'm going off somewhere, and you mustn't try to find me."
Then there was some one else who felt quite alone in the world, and that was little Katie. Her cousin had pushed her one side as if she was of no value. Katie was a very little child, but she was old enough to feel aggrieved. She went into the parlor, and threw herself face downwards on the sofa, thinking.